Hooked On Urban Angling

Fish Are Biting In Such Offbeat Spots As Retention Ponds

John Nicosia sat at the edge of the shallow creek in Schaumburg, dangling a fishing line in the water and lamenting his misfortune.

He was out of night crawlers, and the fish weren't biting the bits of apricot and caramel he was using as bait.

"If I had night crawlers, you'd see the bobber going up and down 100 times," said Nicosia, 59, as he squeezed another chunk of caramel onto his hook. "Then you'd see real action."

There was no reason to doubt him. Fish were jumping all around his bobber. But the more obvious question was why he'd want to fish in the creek in the first place. The stagnant water was murky brown. A drainage pipe periodically spit more gunk into it. And his fishing hole was within feet of a buzzing Commonwealth Edison Co. substation and within yards of the roaring rush-hour traffic along the Northwest Tollway.

Yet to Nicosia, it's not where he is but simply that he's fishing. Throughout the Chicago area, fishing enthusiasts are heading to the most unlikely of waters with their rods and reels. They're angling in retention ponds, casting in reservoirs and dropping lines in lagoons and storm drains--anywhere a fish might bite.

It's a phenomenon that has occurred for years in ponds and lagoons in Chicago parks. But it's happening more frequently as the suburbs grow and more flood-preventing retention ponds are being dug. Some suburbanites are just beginning to realize that fish live in many of those ponds, and it's easier to drop a line in one of them than to fight traffic and compete with motorboats for the right to fish on more pristine waterways. Also, the proximity allows some to even angle on a lunch break.

Even those who fish in these out-of-the-way waters are passionate about their sport. Some go so far as to sneak onto private property to cast into ponds loaded with crappie and largemouth bass. And one Rolling Meadows man admits sometimes taking his fishing pole along on golf outings to try his luck in the water hazards.

Obsessed? Maybe.

But Paul Quinnett, who's something of an expert on the psychology and philosophy of fishing, said the sport merely piques human curiosity.

"It's an adventure, a kind of mystery wrapped in the enigma of water," said Quinnett, a clinical psychologist in Cheney, Wash., who has written three books on the subject: "Pavlov's Trout," "Darwin's Bass" and "Fishing Lessons." "We don't go under the waves, and yet we're dying to know what's under there."

Adding to the mystery of many unlikely fishing holes is how the fish got there. Many retention ponds aren't stocked by the park districts and property-management agencies that own them.

One answer can be found at a tiny drainage ditch in Hoffman Estates. Sitting on the grassy banks, a group of youngsters explained they like to catch carp in a nearby pond and then release them in the drainage ditch to create their own secret fishing hole.

"You gotta sit down," commanded Shirley Brownlee, 10, to a visitor watching to see if anything would bite the bread she was using for bait. "They can see your shadow."

There are lots of other ways that fish show up in places where they shouldn't, according to Jim Langbein, a fisheries biologist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Some fishermen dump their leftover bait of minnows into ponds where they've had no luck. In a short time, with a lack of predators and an abundance of food and warm water, some species of those little fish can grow to a foot long.

And when heavy rains flood rivers, creeks and lakes, they can spill their bounties into smaller bodies of water. Presto, instant fishing holes.

None of this really matters to the fishing die-hards. They just like to fish.

Paul Swapp of Rolling Meadows admits to sometimes fishing in the water hazards between holes when he golfs. He also acknowledges sneaking onto the property of Ameritech Corp.'s headquarters in Hoffman Estates at 5 a.m. to fish in the pond, even though security guards usually kick him out.

"It's right there. You pull over to the side of the road and run 20 yards. It's great fishing," said Swapp, as he fished in a culvert along the Northwest Tollway in Schaumburg. "You never know what you're going to catch, and it's always a surprise when you land it. You can catch a dinky little fish that puts up a fight, and sometimes a big fish won't put up any fight."

Some folks hit a retention pond because it's the nearest place to fish on a lunch break.

As he stood on the banks of a retention pond outside the Lisle Hilton Hotel, Dave Lyons explained lunchtime fishing breaks up his workday and gets his blood pumping. He said he releases most of what he catches, though he acknowledged sometimes taking one or two home over the years to cook for dinner. His colleagues don't mind him occasionally bringing a fish back to the office in a bucket of water.

"It'll keep it alive until I can get them home," said Lyons, of Aurora.